This Georgia workshop provides an opportunity to train and test your blood tracking dog

4^th Annual Eastern Lacy Fun Day (ELF day)   

LaGrange, GA

March 15-17, 2013   9:00am till 6:00pm

 

We are back for our fourth year!!!  Come share the fun with a great group of Lacy enthusiasts and our dogs.  Activities will include introductory, intermediate, and advanced blood tracking and training, evaluation for United Blood Tracker (UBT) certifications, working cattle and more.  Silent auction on Saturday. The workshop is endorsed by TLGDA and UBT.

Although this event started as a Lacy dog event it has morphed onto all breeds being welcome to participate in the UBT testing. 

Entry to grounds - $5 per person, or $10 per carload.    Super Special!!   $20 for admittance and access to all training events for one handler and a group of dogs. 

We are very fortunate to have two UBT certified judges for this event.  Marlo Riley from Texas and Alan Wade from Louisiana will be joining us again this year.  UBT evaluations will begin on Friday, March 15. UBT evaluation fees are:  UBT 1  $50; UBT 2 $75.   Lines for UBT 1 are aged at least 2 hours and UBT 2 evaluations have to be aged at least 8 hrs or overnight.  Therefore, due to limited space and time constraints, pre-registration and payment are strongly encouraged.  Please contact Rebecca for registration forms and info.

Thursday afternoon, March 14 is the set up day/check in for cabins;  Friday, March 15 is registration and UBT testing;  Saturday, March 16 is registration,  UBT testing,  blood track training and practice tracks. Experienced blood trackers will be on hand for one on one instruction.  Sunday is clean up.

If you can come early i.e., Thursday afternoon/evening to help or socialize, we will be glad to have you.  Breakfast will be provided on Friday and Saturday for $3 each day.  Potluck dinner on Friday night.   Please bring something to share.  Cookout on Saturday night.  Bring something to throw on the grill!!!

Limited overnight accommodations are available for $15/night per person in the cabins (kids are free).  Please register early if you plan to stay overnight.  Please bring your cooler full of some favorite non-alcoholic beverages and lawn chairs.

All dogs must be under direct control of their owners at all times.  Please bring a leash and crate along.  A tie out might also be handy.  No dogs in heat and no alcohol allowed on premises!!  For more information please call Rebecca Ferrell at 850-508-6981 or email at rebeccaferrell@comcast.net  or Kathy Presley at 404-408-4216 or email at bkeepr@gmail.com.

The pictures were taken at previous ELF workshops.

A new book on Blue Lacys - The Texas Dog Manual by Sean Cockrell

The Texas Dog Manual, a new book by Sean Cockrell on Blue Lacy Dogs looks like a fascinating read. For more information about the content and how to order it, click here. Blue Lacys are popular blood trailing dogs, especially in Texas, yet there is very little written about them and available in print. We are looking forward to reading it.

Information on upcoming blood tracking workshops

I am not sure whether blog readers have noticed, but we have started to post information about upcoming events that include training and testing in blood tracking. The info is placed in a new spot as links to respective stand-alone pages in the right column, at the top, just below our logo.

Below is a slide show composed of the pictures taken at the East Coast Lacy Fun Day in 2010. The 2011 event is coming up soon on March 26, in Georgia. Thank you to Rebecca Ferrell for the information and pictures!

Jake, a Blue Lacy from Texas, recovers a wounded deer in Wisconsin

This e-mail was forwarded to me from Cheri Faust from Madison, WI. She received it from John Hepfler.

We talked last Thursday-you were on the road. Mack McGowen came over from Mnpls to track my buck. His lacy - Jake - found it!! He would have found it sooner but I told Mack it was going in the wrong direction - I watched the deer run east - Jake wanted to go North. Soooo, we searched going east for over 2 hours - nothing. Later, Mack decided to just give the dog his head to go wherever he wanted. No blood trail at all, anywhere, by the way. So, in 10 minutes, Jake found the deer. It had made a 90 degree turn - no blood at all, ever. If I had believed the dog, we would have found it in 10 minutes. My fault! Per the laser rangefinder it was 439 yards from my blind to where Jake and Mack found the buck.


Mack is a VERY patient, very professional young man. Obviously Jake is very competent. I would recommend them to anyone - and I will! You may pass this along to Mack - he is a credit to your organization. I did not have a camera, but Mack took cellphone pics - you may use them on your website if you want.

Again, Thanks!!

John Hepfler

P.S. It was a very nice, heavy racked 10 pointer! Actually, this was more exciting than the hunt itself!


I asked Mack for permission to post the e-mail on the blog and received his reply:

Thanks for the email, it's quite a treat hearing from you, your husband's book made a huge impact in the way I trained Jake!

This was Jake's second track of his second season, he's a 2 year old Blue Lacy, we tracked last year on my deer lease in Coleman County, Texas as well as attending a UBT training day hosted by Marlo Riley. He did really well, although he had to learn the hard way not to growl at Marlo! Tracking in Texas is a lot different than up here in Wisconsin!

There really was no visible blood, barely any under the deer where Jake found him. With hardly any wind to speak of, when Jake went hard north down the hill and John was absolutely positive the deer had headed up the ridge and through a stand of trees on the fence line, I brought Jake back up to the point of loss (Trust your dog!). I worked him all the way up the top of the ridge, hoping to pick up a blood trail along the fence line. He didn't show much interest in anything, except one crossing on the fence line down the hill from where John saw his buck cross. We started working that area, and Jake made two fence crossings and we wound up in the middle of a field with tall grass, he was checking scent on the tops of the grasses as we worked along, dipping his head to the trail. He checked himself twice when his trail crossed deer paths, both times I asked him, "Are you sure Jake, are you sure?" Both times he responded with a definite, "Yes!" which for Jake is a hard pull in the right direction. He went down to the corner of the pasture, through some nasty brush and back through the fence. The lead went slack and I could hear him growling to himself. When I peeked up over the fence and saw that big Wisconsin deer lying there I let out a whoop! Jake, the only Texas Blue Lacy in Wisconsin had just found the largest deer we've ever tracked, with no visible blood!

John was a real pleasure to track with, he was very patient with us and held back any doubts he had in Jake's ability. He very generously took me out for a beer, burger, filled my truck up with gas and with enough money to buy plenty of kibbles for my Tracking buddy! It's being able to help guys out like John that keep me coming back for more!

Huge congratulations to Jake and Mack!